<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Cyber-Rat King by Hours_Gone_By</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657700">The Cyber-Rat King</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By'>Hours_Gone_By</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>AU Yeah AUgust 2020 [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Transformers: Beast Wars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU Yeah August 2020, Alternate Universe, Ambiguity, Gangs, Gangsters, Gen, Story within a Story</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:33:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Cheetor groaned and slumped down in his chair. "Ugh. Monitor duty is so boring."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Well, whaddya want me to do? Tell ya a story?"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"…I mean, if you wanted to, I guess I wouldn't say no."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Yeah, alright then, I got a story for ya," Rattrap said, leaning back in the chair. "You ever heard of the Cyber-Rat King?"</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>AU Yeah AUgust 2020 [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860307</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Cyber-Rat King</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for AU Yeah AUgust Day 28. Prompt: Mythology</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cheetor groaned and slumped down in his chair. "Ugh. Monitor duty is so <em>boring</em>. Can't Sentinel just monitor for stuff and let us know if there are any Preds nearby?"</p>
<p>"Eh, Sentinel's okay for a lotta stuff," Rattrap said with a shrug. "But for other stuff, ya still need a pair of livin' optics to look out for it. Sentinel's a lotta things, but not alive like you and me."</p>
<p>"Yeah, I guess," Cheetor muttered. "Doesn't make monitor duty any less boring, though."</p>
<p>"Well, whaddya want me to do? Tell ya a story?"</p>
<p>Cheetor huffed. "I'm not a <em>kid</em>!" He paused then added quickly, "but, I mean, if you wanted to, I guess I wouldn't say no."</p>
<p>"Yeah, alright then, I got a story for ya," Rattrap said, leaning back in the chair. "You ever heard of the Cyber-Rat King?"</p>
<p>"No," Cheetor said, fascinated. "Who was he?"</p>
<p>Rattrap chuckled. "Oh, kid, you never heard of the Cyber-Rat King? Alright. Lemme tell you about him.</p>
<p>"Way back, long time ago, even before the Autobots and Decepticons started their slag, there were a whole bunch of gangs, runnin' the underground. All of 'em were into different stuff, and they all wanted to be in charge of everything. So they'd try to work together, but none of 'em wanted to give up enough info to the others to really do it. Some stuff they'd share and some other things they'd have encrypted. Plus, they were all backstabbin' each other every chance they got—tons of gang wars and mecha jumpin' each other in the under-streets.</p>
<p>"Now, at some point in the middle of all this, this one mech shows up. The thing is, people only see him through comms and messages. Doesn't say much when he <em>does</em> talk and doesn't try to get in with any gangs or anything. It's pretty obvious he's up to something, though. No one can figure out what, though, and <em>man</em> did they try! Gotta me something, right? It's driving everyone nuts, but wherever the mech's holed up, no one can track him back there. Ain't nothing showing on scanners, surveillance, nothin'. Mech's a ghost, 'cept they know he's around an' doing something. See, there's stuff happening in the networks, stuff that can't be traced back to no one, and it's all kinda working to, y'know, smooth things out between the gangs.</p>
<p>"At first, all the encrypted stuff stayed encrypted, but soon a lot of the encrypted stuff was getting freed up. Didn't always work out great, but once everyone'd had whatever revenge they wanted – and that went back and forth for a while, let me tell <em>you</em> – things started going smooth. <em>Real</em> smooth. Gangs started working together, leaders starting figurin' out how things all worked between 'em, 'cept for one thing: who was in charge.</p>
<p>"Now, each gang leader wanted to be the one in charge, but none of 'em could get the upper hand. Every time one of 'em started to, something'd happen to bring 'em back down. Always something that went wrong in their network, too, something that'd cost 'em just enough they couldn't quite make it to the top. Not quite. But the networks were all supposed to be separate from each other, all locked up behind firewalls and everything, and only a couple trusted gang members had access. So, they figured there was a cyber-rat or two behind all this. The only thing was, the main suspect for the cyber-rat was this ghost-mech, and no-one knew how to get around to finding <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>"They tried a lot, using their best hackers, bringing in black-hats from outside, anything to trace him back but the cyber-rat was in deep. Couldn't get close; they'd just get bumped outta there before they even got a <em>clue</em>. The cyber-rat knows they're there, and he don't like this, not one bit. So the hackers are still at it one day, and all of a sudden, they <em>all</em> get booted right straight outta the networks. Can't get back in! Not one of 'em! And then, worse, the networks go <em>dark</em>. Every terminal just shuts right down, and even the lights go out. No one moves, no one knows what to do, even if they should do anything. Pretty obvious they've just pissed the cyber-rat off, and the mech's dangerous. I mean, they always knew that but so long as he was dangerous and it helped them, they were okay with it. It's a whole different thing when it might be aimed at them.</p>
<p>"So they're all standin' there, freakin' out 'cause they got <em>no</em> idea what's gonna happen. Big bad gang members, don't even go for the door, they're that freaked. Then just as sudden as they went off, the lights come back on again. Networks come back up, and a new logo that none of 'em have ever seen is showin' on the screens. It's a whole bunch of cyber-rats in a circle with their tails tied together in the middle of it. There's one rat – and one tail – for each of the networks the cyber-rat's been getting' into. They don't gotta be told who's in charge now. They know who, and it's this mystery mech, no ifs, ands or buts."</p>
<p>Rattrap finished and sat back, folding his arms in satisfaction. "And that's the story of the Cyber-Rat King."</p>
<p>"Wow!" Cheetor's optics were wide. "Did they ever figure out who it was?"</p>
<p>Rattrap shrugged. "Not so far as I know. Whole lotta speculation, though. In some versions of the story, he's a gang member who was smart enough to take over and hide out while he did it. Sometimes they're someone who wasn't even that side of the planet – or on the planet at all. Sometimes, an' this is the one I heard first, is that they were an AI, maybe sparked and maybe not, that went rogue. But, ain't no one knows for sure.</p>
<p>"Anyway," Rattrap slapped his knees and shoved himself to his feet. "Shift's done, storytime's over. See ya later, kid."</p>
<p>"Uh, yeah, sure. See you, Rattrap. Hey, Rattrap?" Cheetor added hastily as the rat made to leave. "Did – that Cyber-Rat King guy's not still around, is he?"</p>
<p>"Eh, probably not, He's gotta be ancient history by now. But, he set up a strong enough mob, who knows? Some of it might've surprised. Could be mecha around doin' stuff in the Cyber-Rat King's name to this day." Rattrap let Cheetor stare at him for a moment, then winked.</p>
<p>Cheetor laughed. "Oh, okay. You had me there!"</p>
<p>"Heh, almost had you going, yeah. Anyway, I'm done, kid."</p>
<p>"Sure. See you tomorrow, Rattrap."</p>
<p>Rattrap chuckled to himself as he walked down the corridor, slipping a medallion out of his subspace and flipping it expertly up in the air. An intricate pattern of knotted tails caught the light as it came back down and disappeared into his closed hand.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This story is part of the <a href="https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject">LLF Comment Project</a>, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:<br/></p>
<ul>
<li>Short comments</li>
<li>Long comments</li>
<li>Questions</li>
<li>Constructive criticism</li>
<li>“&lt;3” as extra kudos</li>
<li>Reader-reader interaction</li>
</ul>
<p>Author Responses: This author replies to comments. If you don't want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with "whisper," and I will appreciate it but not respond.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>